“I want more.” This was Davey. A slower eater than the rest, he was just polishing off his first plateful.
“I’m sorry, but it’s all gone.” Caroline took another bite as she spoke. She was still on her original serving, and only halfway through with that. These Mathieson men must have hollow legs to put away such a quantity of food so quickly!
“No more!” Davey’s face puckered as if he would cry. From all around the table, the five remaining males looked up at her with identical disbelieving expressions.
“No more?” Uttered in Matt’s deep voice, the words were a careful question.
“No. No more,” Caroline said firmly, as if she were dealing with a sextet of idiots. Really, didn’t they understand plain English?
“But I told you that there are six of us, and that we have big appetites.”
“Except for David, you’ve had three helpings each!” Putting her spoon down again, she stared at Matt indignantly.
“Aye, and we’ve worked all day, too. Hard, outdoor work, with no nuncheon. We’re men, and we’re hungry. In future you will please remember that.”
As rebukes go, that one was fairly mild, but still it made Caroline see red.
“In future I’ll prepare enough for a barnyard full of hogs, as that’s what I seem to be feeding!” She tried to jump to her feet, only to be thwarted as the solidly weighted down bench refused to budge. Fuming, she slid off the end of the bench and stood, fists clenched, glaring at the bunch of them.
“There’s no need to get angry. We’re all willing to make allowances, considering this is your first day with us. We’ll fill up on the girdlecakes. There are more girdlecakes?” Matt’s tone was that of a reasonable man dealing with the unreasonable.
“No. There are not. I made two dozen girdlecakes, and you’ve wolfed down every one!” If there was a hysterical edge to her voice, it was nothing compared to the way she was feeling. She wanted to scream, wanted to curse and stomp her feet. She wanted to grind these unappreciative males to dust! To have
worked so hard, for such a reward as this, was infuriating.
“No more cakes!” This was Davey again, and this time he burst into noisy tears. Staring at him, Caroline felt like crying herself. She was tired, and hungry too, because she hadn’t even had a chance to finish her own meal, and she didn’t have a bed, and the table still had to be cleared and the dishes washed and …
It was too much. She clamped her lips together, turned on her heel, and walked with careful dignity from the kitchen through the keeping room and out the rear door.
It was twilight, near to total dark. Stars were beginning to appear overhead. A quarter moon floated on the edge of the sky, its light obscured by blowing clouds. The sounds of chirping insects and croaking frogs filled the air. From somewhere in the distance came a mournful howl.
The howl was what did it. Nothing ever howled like that in England. Shivering as the cold night air blew through her thin dress, Caroline walked as far as the fence that edged the barnyard. Placing her hand on top of the gate, she laid her forehead on her hand.
Then she cried.
9
D
espite the lightness of his tread, Caroline was aware of Matt’s approach even with her back turned. There was something, a sixth sense, that told her he was there.
Straightening, she angrily dashed the tears from her cheeks, glad for the covering darkness that, she hoped, hid her weakness. The very last thing in the world she wanted was pity, from him or anyone else.
“Thank the Lord you’ve stopped sniveling. I can’t abide women who weep.”
At that unfeeling statement her spine stiffened into ramrod erectness. Fists clenching at her sides, she pivoted to face him.
“I am not weeping! I never weep!”
The night enveloped him as it did her, making it difficult to read his expression. She was aware of the height and breadth of him as he stood perhaps half a dozen paces from her, of the whiteness of his shirt, of his musky male scent, but the details of his appearance were hidden from her. As, she hoped, the details of hers were from him.
“All women weep like watering pots, hoping for sympathy. I’ll not tolerate it in my household.”
Caroline took a deep breath. “You,” she said with
forced calm, “have obviously had very limited experience with women.”
“I was wed for thirteen years.”
“Are you saying that Elizabeth was a watering pot? I don’t wonder at it, having met you and your sons and brothers.”
“You know nothing about me or my family.”
“Believe me, I know as much about you and your family as I care to know. I’m leaving in the morning. There must be something, some work I can do, in the town.”
“You’re not leaving.” The quite surety of that statement took Caroline aback.
“I most certainly am! You can’t stop me! You’re every one of you filthy, rude, and unappreciative, and that’s being kind! I’d rather work as a—as a—as anything I can find rather than slave away for the lot of you!”
“Strong words, but I’m afraid the choice isn’t yours to make.”
“Of course the choice is mine! What do you mean, the choice isn’t mine?”
“You forget that I paid for your passage. You are legally indebted to me. You can work the amount off informally, as a member of the family, or we can go to the magistrate and make it official. I’ve no objection to taking you on as a bound girl.”
“A bound girl!”
“I’m sure Tobias would be willing to testify as to your indebtedness.”
“You wouldn’t do such a thing!”
“I would—if you force me to it.” He was silent as
disbelief and outrage combined to stun her into silence as well. When he spoke again, some of the grimness had left his voice. “But I’d rather you didn’t make it necessary. ’Twould be best for all concerned if we could try to come to some mutually agreeable accommodation. I admit, when I was first presented with you and your—ah—difficulties, I was not best pleased. But now I see that the situation might well offer real benefits for all of us. You need a home. We need a woman’s touch around here. In particular, my boys need mothering. You are their aunt. Who better than you to take on the task?”
“If you want a mother for your sons, why don’t you simply remarry?” Resentment sharpened her voice.
“I’ve no wish to wed again. Ever.” There was a cold finality to his tone that told her that he meant what he said.
“I’m a thief and a liar of the Royalist persuasion, remember? Surely you don’t want the likes of me corrupting your innocent children?”
“I’ve no fear that you’ll teach them to steal or to lie,” he said. Then, just as Caroline was recovering from her surprise at the apparent compliment, he added, “Their morals are too firmly ingrained for that. Besides, they’ve a healthy fear of my wrath. As for your Royalist leanings, ’tis apparent that they were learned at your father’s knee, and thus are not entirely your fault. We shall simply have to relearn you.”
“You may try!”
“We just might succeed.”
“Not very likely!”
“Not much that happens in life is very likely, I’ve
found. Take your arrival, for example. I spent the better part of the afternoon pondering it, and finally decided that you just might be a gift from Providence. According to the Scripture, the Lord works in mysterious ways.” There was a glint of humor in his voice. “In your case, I would say, very mysterious.”
“Thank you.” Her response was icy.
“Come, I was but teasing you.” He paused a moment to study what he could see of her expression through the darkness. When he spoke again, his voice had altered so that it sounded almost coaxing. “Tonight is the first time in a long while that we’ve come in to a clean house and a cooked supper. It felt good to have a woman in the kitchen, even at your insistence that we wash up. It struck me then that you can offer something my boys need, something I can’t give them: a woman’s kind of caring.”
“Well.” Though she was loath to admit it even to herself, the picture he painted of six males hungering for a woman’s gentling touch softened her. They needed her, that was what he was telling her. As she realized that, she also realized that what he was offering her was balm for her sore and weary heart: the home and family she had recognized only that afternoon that she craved. “I’m not averse to doing what I can for my nephews, but I’ll not be treated with disrespect, mind, nor ordered about like a maidservant.”
“We’ll treat you with all honor, I promise you, though in return I trust you’ll not enact us a tragedy over every misspoken word or unthinking deed. We’ve been on our own for a long time, and it may be that our manners are a trifle rougher than they should be.
As a case in point, what was said tonight was not meant to hurt your feelings, The food was good; in fact, ’twas as tasty a meal as I’ve eaten since I don’t remember when.”
“I enjoy cooking.” Caroline cautiously lowered her guard a degree more. His cajolery was having the effect he intended. She realized that he was using soft words to get what he wanted from her, but she responded nonetheless. Almost greedily she contemplated taking them all in hand.
“Well, then, as we enjoy eating, you are clearly heaven-sent.”
He smiled at her then, a slow, crooked grin that was illuminated as the moon slid out from behind a cloud. It eased something inside her that had been wound up tight since her father died. Until that moment she had not thought that he could smile. It made him look younger, far younger than she had imagined he could be, and almost dazzlingly handsome. Once, oh, once, how he would have appealed to her!
“How old are you?” The question popped into her head, and from there to her mouth, without volition. As soon as she uttered it, Caroline blushed to her hairline. Once again she was thankful for the darkness. His age was none of her business, and her question implied an interest in him that she certainly did not feel!
The smile died. His eyes narrowed, and a measure of distance entered his voice as he replied. “Thirty-two.”
“But Elizabeth is—would have been …” His answer surprised her so much that she couldn’t let the topic go.
“She was three years older than I.”
“You must have been only seventeen when you wed her and left England!”
“Did she not tell you that, in the letters she was forever writing you and your father?”
There was an undertone to his voice that she did not understand. Was it bitterness, or hurt, or anger, or some combination of all three? Or was it simply annoyance at her questions?
“To tell you the truth, she rarely mentioned you.” As soon as she said it, Caroline realized how tactless the remark was.
“Or, I’ll wager, the boys.” There was no mistaking the bitterness this time.
“No.” It surprised Caroline to realize that this was so. Such an omission had never struck her as strange before, but then before today she had never met her sister’s family and had had no notion of them as living, breathing human beings. How any woman could have failed to brag about two sturdy sons and a swooningly handsome husband was puzzling. But Elizabeth’s letters, which had come frequently at first and then grown increasingly rare with the passing years, had been mostly concerned with the scenic beauty of the New World and how different it was from the old. Caroline frowned as she realized how truly devoid of personal information her sister’s correspondence had been. She had never mentioned Matt’s—or Mr. Mathieson’s, as Elizabeth had always very properly referred to him—age, or his remarkable handsomeness, or his limp. She had written nothing of his brothers who had made their home with them, and little of the circumstances
in which she lived. Occasionally Elizabeth had made vague reference to her children, but she had never written anything that would convey the vigorous reality of those two vital little boys. How could she have made so little of those things that were surely essential to her life? If there was an answer to that, Caroline couldn’t at the moment find it.
In the distance an animal howled again. From behind the house where he was still tied, Raleigh joined in in mournful reply. Caroline shivered, suddenly cold. Or had the shiver been prompted by something else entirely?
Matt made a sound under his breath. “I must loose the dog.” His gaze slid to her face. “Come with me. If you are to make your home with us, you and Raleigh must needs be friends.”
“No, I thank you.” Caroline was suddenly eager to be safely back inside the four walls of the house. When she rushed outside, she had scarcely noticed the encroaching gloom of the forest in her upset. Now it loomed close and forbidding, more sinister in the dark than it had been even by day. The howling continued in eerie chorus as more and more of the baying creatures joined in. Caroline wrapped her arms about herself and looked nervously around.
“What
is
that?” Despite her best efforts, she could not quite conceal her apprehension. Matt reached for her, the gesture one of automatic reassurance as his hand curled around her arm just above her elbow. Starting toward the house, he pulled her along with him. Caroline felt the heat of his palm, the hard strength of his fingers, even through the silk of her
sleeve, and tried to fight what she knew was coming. But for all her determination to overcome it the distaste arose like bile, clouding her thoughts, making her want to thrust his hand away. His touch was more unnerving than the pagan chorus reverberating around her. Unable to stop herself, she jerked her arm free. To her relief, he seemed scarcely to notice.
“That?” His voice was casual. “Wolves. Not close.”
“Wolves!” That got her attention. Her eyes darted fearfully along the shadowy perimeter of the woods. More afraid of the wolves now than she was leery of him, she moved closer to the solid warmth of his body. Still she did not touch him, merely walked at his side, but it was comforting to have him near. Though if wolves attacked, she wouldn’t wager her life that he wouldn’t abandon her to them. He seemed to have almost as little use for women as she had for men.
“Aye. But don’t worry. They stay away from the settled areas, for the most part. Even when hunger drives them in, they don’t usually devour young women. Jacob is more to their liking, which is why he’s locked in the barn at night.